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I was waiting for my First Officer to scream “brace for impact” as I tried to steer a Boeing 787 Dreamliner into Heathrow on Friday morning.

Behind me, hundreds of passengers unburdened themselves of long-kept secrets to their nearest and dearest while eyeing the nearest emergency exit.

The tarmac comes up pretty fast when you’re, er, piloting one of the world’s most advanced airliners across London and you soon understand why real British Airways pilots train for 18 months before getting a chance to touchdown for real.

Thankfully my first attempt at landing an aircraft which costs about £170million wasn’t real, but in a flight simulator parked at Belfast City Airport.

But it was still nerve wracking as you realise just how quickly to need to correct a badly judged approach and prevent an emergency landing in the terminal building. After about 5 minutes of ‘training’, fully qualified First Officer Ben Farrell uttered the words, “Why don’t you try and land it?”.

A surge of adrenalin focussed me on the thin grey strip of runway up ahead and suddenly I didn’t look as easy as it does on TV.

Thankfully, all I had to do was steer, while my wingman took care of thrust. But it seems the art of guiding one of these things onto the ground takes a knack I seemed to be lacking.

It’s like you’re steering a big ship, not that I have much experience there either. I was all delicate touch, when what this yolk needs is a strong nudge in the direction you want to go followed by a return to a neutral direction as the lumbering liner corrects its course.

The nearly ready for a roll angle I ended up on my final approach would no doubt have had real people screaming for their mothers, but eventually I managed to right the beast and get it on the ground albeit parked on the grass verge.

In real life there’d have probably been fire engines speeding alongside me as I slowed to a halt and stewardesses telling women to remove their heels before disappearing down the escape slide.

It was fun, but I think I’m probably better suited to something like a Tornado or possibly just a Cessna. If you fancy taking your time to learn how to fly, though, the Dreamliner simulator is in Belfast this week to encourage people to consider getting onto the British Airways Future Pilot programme .